


Let Us Both Forget

by auri_mynonys



Series: What Milady Needs [2]
Category: The Lord of the Rings (Movies)
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Child Abandonment, Comfort Sex, Dysfunctional Relationships, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Makeup Sex, Possessive Behavior, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-28
Updated: 2013-03-28
Packaged: 2017-12-06 18:29:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/738778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auri_mynonys/pseuds/auri_mynonys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grima, who opted to stay with Theoden instead of fleeing to Saruman, finds a letter Eowyn left him many years ago and confronts her about its meaning. He makes some unpleasant discoveries he may have been better off not knowing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let Us Both Forget

Rejection, Gríma had found, led to the greatest moments of weakness.

He had always prided himself on his ability to predict other people’s behavior, and this particular behavior he knew better than most others. He had seen a hundred men and women fall to the sorrow of rejection, time and time again. In that period where men drowned themselves in sorrow, they were the most open and vulnerable to Gríma’s manipulations; and so he stepped in, and lent a sympathetic ear and a kindly word, and a friendly suggestion to do this or that, and in that way all of his dirtiest work was done.

Even Gríma was not immune to the power of rejection. Certainly all of his personal greatest mistakes had been made after Éowyn had turned him away, in one of her more feisty, irritable moods. Saruman was one such mistake, a foolish choice he had barely survived to regret.

But now that the time of Saruman’s control over him had passed, and he had had some time to reflect, he realized that it was he himself who was Éowyn’s repeated mistake. Whenever she was rejected, or lonely, or in the darkest spaces of her mind, she came to him for comfort, seeking what whispers he could give her, and what dark, forgetful pleasures he could provide her.

He did for her what he did for all others: offered her a gentle hand and sweet words. He lent her his flesh on which to paint her despair, and oh, what pretty pictures she drew. She left her signature in lovely little teeth marks on his shoulder, and sealed her art with blood and tears and tiny, gasping sobs.

It used to be that Gríma would believe that  _this_  time would be the time she stayed _,_ the time when the weight of her sorrow was too great to bear alone. With each hiss and bite he would tell himself that he had never seen her lose control so completely, that she had never wanted him so much; and when he woke and found her gone the next morning, and entered the Golden Hall to a cold shoulder and an icy glare, he would feel the crushing weight of his own despair, and would close himself off once more – forever, he said each time,  _forever. Let her try crawling back to me the next time the world wounds her. Let her try, and see what I shall say then._

But his resolve was not so strong as he would wish; and every time Éowyn came to him with tears in her eyes and rage in her fists, he took her back, gratefully and happily.  _This time. This time…_

He would have liked to believe he was not so great a fool as he had been before Gandalf’s coming. He had seen her turn from him so fast it made his head spin, had watched her drool and fawn over another man for what seemed like months. The ranger – Gríma could not be bothered to bestow a name upon his enemy – had occupied Éowyn’s attention so thoroughly that she had all but ignored Gríma since Helm’s Deep, save for one sweet afternoon where she sent for him to hold her through the pain of her woman’s blood. She spent the rest of her days bounding after the ranger like a colt on its wobbly newborn legs, fumbling and nickering and doing all but nuzzle up to the man.

Gríma, like all other men, was not taking his rejection well. He spent as little time as possible out among the others, locking himself away in his chambers. He came when summoned – only ever by Gandalf or Théoden – and left when they were through with him; and the rest of his days were spent pacing restlessly, reading books he’d read a thousand times and occasionally attempting to sort his chambers, half-heartedly.

It was a pitiful existence, one he loathed with every fiber of his being; and sometimes, he could not help but wonder if he would have been better off running to Saruman. At least then he would be dead.

He had resolved to clean up all the messes that day, for he certainly had little else to do. He had not been summoned to the throne room in three days, and he had done virtually nothing but sleep for hours. He would sleep, wake up, make himself something to eat, and sleep again. But he was tired of sleeping now, and tired of doing nothing. He was going mad inside his own head, losing his mind piece by piece; and if he did not do something soon, he would lose it altogether.

So he woke, and rose, and began to clean.

It was an onerous task, particularly for him, who had always had a place for everything. In his chambers at least he had always had control of every single detail; he could not say as much for the shambles of his life. There was some comfort, though, in the monotony of the work. His mind was occupied with where to place things, and how to straighten the bookshelves so that all the books were in order once again; where to put his better garments and where to put the poorer ones, and what to do with the random nick-knacks and oddments he’d collected over the years.

He was actually beginning to feel a sense of accomplishment when he found the letter and the lock of Éowyn’s hair. He had never seen either of them before, and gathered that they both must have been from the very earliest days of his relationship with Éowyn. In those days she had been so young, with stars in her eyes and hope in her heart. She had let him flirt and tease, had done her best to play at being coy without really understanding what it meant or how it was done; and she had come to him then with such exuberance, such  _happiness._

And then, just like that, the playful girl he’d known and loved had gone. An ice queen took her place, cold and harsh and unforgiving, save in her darkest moments, when she fled her nightmares and came to lose herself in his arms, where she knew unquestionably that she would be safe and understood.

He had forgiven her a thousand times; but she had never forgiven him.

This was a letter from before those times, before he’d needed forgiveness. Both it and its accompanying lock of hair had fallen out of a book she’d borrowed once, a book of only remote interest to him – a detailed history of weaponry from all across the world. He had picked it up more for the rarity of the find than the actual content of the book itself.

She had spotted it and begged to read it immediately – right in the middle of a tryst, if he remembered rightly. He had been so irritated to find her distracted. “Am I boring you, princess?” he had said, glowering sourly at her.

She had turned such a pretty shade of pink. “I – no, of course not, I just – does that – have you a book about weapons and warfare on that shelf?”

Gríma had sighed and raised his eyes to the rafters. “Of  _course_  it’s a book of weapons. I suppose I must prepare myself to forever play second fiddle to steel and swords. No amount of pleasure and joy I bring could ever compare to what swords will do for you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Éowyn replied, huffing in affront. “I was just curious – ”

He sighed again, casting her a disparaging look. “Yes, it’s a book of weaponry throughout the ages. Yes, you may borrow it. And no, you may  _not_ go grab it right this instant. Prior to your distraction we were rather preoccupied… unless I truly am boring you? Well, we can’t have that, can we, sweetling? Shall I make things more entertaining, or would you  _really_  prefer to play with the metal kind of sword?”

There was one thing that could be said for Éowyn: she more than amply made up for her moments of distraction with thorough attention to detail.

She had taken the book when she left that night, clutching it to her chest like a child with a brand new toy. She had read it in a few days, and reread it again in a fortnight. She kept the book for months, and finally returned it just before things fell apart. Before she’d forcibly pulled back from him and left him in the dust, for reasons he still did not entirely understand.

Holding the fragile letter and the lock of hair in his hands, he hoped perhaps it would illuminate him; but there was no explanation, no explicit words spelling out her reasons. The letter only vaguely hinted that she might be leaving soon. There was something heavier about the words than seemed right for the Éowyn he remembered of that time; but what her sorrow was, she would not say.

_I am no good with words. You are their master, and I am merely your admirer. I am not even sure what I mean to do in writing this. I hope you find it. I hope it makes you smile. There are dark days coming, my brother says. For all of us._

_I am not much for trinkets, but though you will deny it to the heavens and back, you are something of a romantic. So here, a lock of hair for you. I hope it serves. I hope that you will keep it safe. A book seems the safest place for it, when I wish to leave it in your keeping. Perhaps it will be safest for the letter too. Maybe you will come upon it someday, when the darkness has passed and you are off somewhere in the world, happy and content, and you will remember me kindly. I hope you will remember me kindly._

_I’m sorry._

The letter did not make him smile, whatever Éowyn might have hoped. The letter only made him angry. Years later, without a word to him, and only  _now_ did she have the courage to say she was sorry? No, this wasn’t even courage. This was cowardice at its finest – leaving him a letter and a present in a book he never read, knowing he would likely never find it, or that by the time he did, it would be too late. And what hurt, more than any of this, was that there was still no explanation for what had happened – just a weak, half-hearted apology, and some childish lines about  _remembering her fondly._

He remembered, most certainly. He remembered that she had disappeared one morning without so much as a good-bye, and that she had been gone on a trip around Rohan that had lasted nigh a year; and when she had returned, when he hurried to greet her and had smiled at her, she had only bowed her head and treated him as if he were a stranger.

She had never bothered to explain the change. They squabbled frequently, and spat venom at one another whenever they had the chance. She was cold, and Gríma bitter; and whenever Gríma made attempts to apologize for whatever crime he had committed, he was either rebuffed or ignored.

She knew. Even before she left, she knew she was going and that she would never speak to him again. It had nothing to do with something that had happened over the year that she was gone, as he had once thought. She had known all along.

Why hadn’t she told him? And what had he done to drive her away?

The anger was a seething pit inside him, bubbling and rising to the surface. He wanted to crumple the letter. He wanted to set that lock of hair on fire and watch it burn, slowly, smoke curling towards the ceiling. He wanted –

His door flew open with a bang, and Éowyn entered.

Her face was flushed, her eyes glassy with unshed tears. Her fingers were curled into fists, and she barely looked at him as she closed the door. “You’re not busy, are you?” she said, her voice shaking. “I just – I shouldn’t, but I need – ”

“No,” Gríma said flatly.

She looked up, startled, her mouth falling open. Gríma clenched his teeth. Curse her, she was  _still_ beautiful,  _still_ perfect, no matter how angry he was with her. How could he still want her after all this time? He had every reason to hate her, but he could not.

“No?” she repeated, drawing back. “Why – what – ”

He held up the letter, hands shaking. Her eyes widened at once in recognition. “Oh,” she said, swallowing hard. “You found it.”

He lowered his hand, fingers curling around the parchment and crumpling it. “Did you find that satisfactory, princess?” he asked. “Leaving me a hidden letter before you left? Did you expect me to forgive you the moment I found it?”

Éowyn reached up and grabbed a hank of her hair, twisting it around and around in her fingers. “Of course not. I did not leave it as an explanation. I did not know what else to do.”

“Perhaps you could have tried talking to me,” Gríma retorted. “Did that never occur to you?”

Éowyn shook her head. “That wasn’t an option. I couldn’t – they asked me not to – ”

All of Gríma’s senses were immediately on alert. He straightened, his grip on the parchment tightening. “Who asked you?” he said. “Why? What happened? What was so terrible that it was kept secret from me all this time?”

Éowyn let out a shuddering breath, releasing her hair and looking away. “It’s done,” she said, very quietly. “It doesn’t matter.” She turned towards the door and started for it, ducking her head. “I’m sorry, I chose a terrible time to see you,” she said. “I’ll just be going, then, if – ”

Gríma ran and threw himself in front of her, blocking the door at once. “Don’t you dare,” he growled, glaring at her. “Don’t you dare do this to me a second time. What are you keeping from me?”

Éowyn closed her eyes. The tears that had been there started to spill over and caught on her lashes, hanging there for a moment before slipping wetly down her cheek. “I – I never meant for it to happen like this – it was just everyone was afraid, and – well, I suppose you proved what they feared most, didn’t you?” Her expression hardened, and she opened her eyes. “You proved how stupid I was to ever think kindly of you.”

Oh, she knew exactly what sort of venom would hurt him most. But the words only served to anger him further, and he stood resolutely in place, blocking the exit. “And yet here you are,” he said, his voice sharp and cold as a blade.

She sagged. “And yet,” she agreed, “Here I am.” She folded her arms over her chest and looked away. “I suppose… you have changed, somewhat. Or are trying. Perhaps it would not be so terrible to tell you… but then – ”

“I’m here, you know,” Gríma snapped, his voice rising. “All the muttering isn’t helping you at all, either.”

Éowyn clenched her fists, and drew in another deep breath. For a moment she seemed at war with herself; but she finally let out the breath she’d been holding in one long, heavy sigh, and dropped into Gríma’s chair, amdist the piles of books he’d been in the process of reorganizing. “Somewhere in the Westfold there is a child,” she said, “Who belongs to you. And me.”

The news hit Gríma like a slap in the face, ringing like a cracking palm against his cheek. “No,” he said flatly, the parchment falling from his hand. “You did not. You did  _not_ give birth to  _my child_  only to take him away from me.”

“Her,” Éowyn said, very softly. “And she was taken from me, too.”

“You gave her away!” Gríma shouted, his voice cracking. “You took her from me without ever giving me a chance to know her! Why?”

“I wasn’t given much choice, either,” Éowyn said, her voice shaking. “I was frightened, and Théodred and Éomer were forceful on the matter. It was nearing my aunt’s death day, and Théoden was not well – you were busy seeing to his care in his moments of darkest sorrow, and he had no time for us. Better, we thought, not to add to his worries, nor to bring shame upon his household in so fragile a time.”

“ _Shame?_ ” Gríma clenched his fists. “What shame was there in that child – in  _our_ child?”

Éowyn cast him a disparaging look. “You of all people know well what shame,” she said. “The child was a bastard, and would always be considered such. The people of Rohan were not kind to you even then; and they would be less kind to a child of yours, born out of wedlock and so close to the throne.” She bit her lip, hard, and Gríma noticed her hands were shaking. “I wanted to keep her safe – to keep  _you_ safe. Threats were being made against you already, and any who saw how close we were grew fearful and whispered that you would try to take the throne…” She closed her eyes again, swallowing. “I did not believe it at the time, of course. I never believed you capable of such deceit. I feared for your safety, and mine, and hers.” She touched her belly absently, as if the child was still there, waiting to be born. “Théodred made all the arrangements. He found a family in the Westfold who would care for her, and told all in Edoras that I would be traveling to the borders to deliver a rallying message of hope. So I went, and stayed, and gave birth, and came home.”

Gríma could hardly manage to spit out the words burning in his throat. “And so when you returned you wished to avoid me, because you could not bear to tell me the truth.”

Still she could not look at him. “I’m sorry,” she said.

He had no words left. He had nothing. The revelation burned within him, hot and angry and sad. “How old is she?” he said, very softly.

Éowyn smiled a little. “Almost six,” she said. “Her adoptive mother tells me she likes her father’s throwing knives and getting in fights with little boys. But she is shy around horses, and has a talent for drawing. She prefers to keep company with other Dunlending children – she has your eyes, and your hair.”

Gríma looked up from under heavy lids. “So you know where she is, and who her parents are.”

Éowyn flinched. “You want her back.”

“Oh, I remember what it was like to be raised as a bastard child in a Westfold village,” he said, very coldly. “No child of mine will suffer the same way I did.”

Éowyn looked up at last, a muscle in her jaw tightening. “Would you rather she be raised as the child of a traitor?” she asked. “Would you condemn her to  _that_  fate instead? No one in her village knows; her parents have most likely guessed, but have not said a word. They tell the others in the village that they found her left on the plains to die. The villagers believe they have done the girl a kindness.”

Gríma clenched his fists. “I wonder how long it will take them to change their minds,” he said. “They always do, when Dunlending children come of age.”

“She is fierce and strong already,” Éowyn said. “She will survive. You did.”

Gríma laughed bitterly. “I wish I hadn’t,” he said. “I wish I had been so fortunate as to be left on the plains to die. The whole world would be the happier for it.”

Éowyn’s eyes widened, glassy and frightened. “Don’t say that.”

“Why not? It’s the truth, isn’t it? And you have so  _longed_  to hear the truth from me, haven’t you?” The words were coming in a torrent, spilling from his mouth before he could silence them. “Well, have it now, since you have been so good as to give it to me: I am not strong. I never was. I am always afraid, and always have been. I fought for every inch of life I’ve lived, every moment, every breath, and I’ve hated myself far more than you can comprehend for every single instant of it. But during every fight I was afraid. I gambled everything I had to assuage my fear, and in the end I lost. And what do I have now? A child on the plains whom I will forever be denied the right to know, and a woman I love who will never love me in return, who turned on me before I ever had the chance to make up for my mistakes.”

It hurt to breathe. It hurt to speak. It hurt to be standing here, alive, in front of her, crumbling before her very eyes. She deserved someone stronger. She always had. He had never been worthy of her, and he had been stupid to believe anything else. Between painful, heavy breaths, he spat, “You would be better off never to have known me, and I would be better off dead than to live like this, to see all my mistakes and frailties thrown back in my face…”

The words trailed away into a half-choked sob, broken and ugly and harsh in his ears. He clenched his fists even more tightly and leaned against the door for support. He was shaking like the grass in the plains on a windy day, trembling from head to toe. He wanted to suffer. He wanted to die. Every sense of coherent thought was leaving him, slinking away and drowning in despair.

And then Éowyn’s hands were on him, and even his sorrow was drowned out.

He choked again and clung to her, dragging her into his arms and holding her desperately. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice breaking over and over again. “I’m so sorry…”

“Shh,” Éowyn soothed. “Gríma, breathe… please breathe…”

He buried his face in the junction of her shoulder and throat and wept, and hated himself for it. He was pathetic. He was a worthless child. She must hate him violently for so badly betraying his own weakness. But he could not bear to let her go, could not bear to send her away.

When he managed, at last, to get his breathing under control, he pulled back just a little and burst out, “I don’t deserve you. I know that. I have always known that. But to survive without you… I cannot fathom it. But I cannot ask you to stay; you deserve much better. You will leave and go with your ranger and be happy, and that’s to the good, for you. I want you to be happy. I swear I do. I – ”

He realized, suddenly, that Éowyn was trembling now, biting down hard on her lip. “What?” he asked, frowning. “What is it?”

Éowyn looked down, tugging at her hair again. “It would appear that my ranger is not, in fact, mine,” she said, very softly. “They tell me there is an elven lady waiting for him in the Last Homely House, and that she will stay with him until the end of days, or until death takes her. Aragorn himself has all but confirmed it.”

Gríma was not certain whether to feel elated or saddened on her behalf. “Is that why you came?” he murmured, reaching up to touch her cheek. “Whenever you are in pain, or lonely, or sad, why is it that you always come to me? Because I am familiar?”

She flushed and shrugged. “You know me,” she said, her voice shaking. “You know me as no other man does. And when I wish to forget… when the world is too dark a place for me and I need to forget my sorrow…”

He smiled thinly. “I understand.”

She blushed even more darkly. “It isn’t fair,” she said. “I know it isn’t. I just…”

“Shh,” he murmured, and pulled her back to him. “Come here, and let us both forget.”

She folded into him almost at once, pressing her mouth to his and cupping his face in her hands. Several times her mouth seemed to form words against his, as if she would say something further – about the child she’d taken from him and lost herself, about his rage, about her sorrow – but the words were swallowed and lost, and were likely better left that way, sinking slowly down his throat. He would keep the words she’d never said, and cling to them when the morning came and she had gone again, like she always did.

Most days he would have carried her to his bed, but she was heavy with her sorrows and he had not the strength to hold her up just yet. He settled for his chair instead, sinking into it and pulling her with him. It was a slower process than he was used to, tender and gentle and tinged with sadness.

Before she sank down onto him, he cupped her face and kissed along her eyes, and whispered, half a question, “Mine?”

“Yours,” she breathed, and curled around him ever so slowly, her fingers in his hair and her forehead pressed to his.

It was strange, the difference between the rough sex he was used to and the slow process of making love. The same eager itch and need for release was there, but there was an aching sadness there that engulfed him, that made the pull and rock of his hips slow and his touches skim across her skin. He kept his eyes open and locked on hers, wet and large and luminous as they were, one hand cupping her cheek and the other stroking her back, over the loosened laces of her gown. She was mostly still covered, but what skin was exposed he occasionally paused to kiss, tenderly, whispering endearments over and over again.

Most of the time when she came to him such a state she was angry, and wanted his rage. Today she clasped her arms around his neck and clung, nuzzling the skin just under his ear as she rolled her hips in slow, smooth rotations. He could feel her heart beating against his chest. There was something terribly sweet in that alone, and he focused on it, on the unsteady rhythm of her heart compared to his, matching her breath for breath.

And for a time, he forgot.

After a time, when she too had forgotten and let go, her pace quickened and her skin flushed, and then the gestures became more familiar. His breath came ragged and heavy and caught around selfish words –  _say you’re mine, sweet lady, say it again, tell me you’re mine, yes, princess, yes –_ and she repeated them so prettily, her lips parting and her tongue rolling and tasting every phrase. Even the slight furrowing of her brows was lovely, the way her lip caught between her teeth as her pleasure rose and began to peak. She tilted her chin back and exposed her throat, and Gríma darted forward to kiss it, sliding a hand between her legs and stroking until she was crying out in his arms, limbs tightening around him and clinging for dear life.

He was so wrapped up in Eowyn’s movements that for a long time he didn’t notice the intruder, paused just outside the door. But when Éowyn was coming down, breathing heavily against his shoulder, he turned his head just at the right moment and caught a glimpse of the ranger, shame-faced, retreating back into the corridor. The ranger looked up and caught Gríma’s eyes, just for a moment, and stiffened at once, half-opening his mouth.

Gríma only stared blankly at him before turning back to Éowyn and gently kissing her ear, smoothing the long locks of her hair and tightening his grip around her waist.  _The princess,_ his gestures said,  _Is mine; you cannot touch her, cannot have her, will never know her as I do. So run along, ranger, back to your elven love, and leave my lady where she belongs._

When he looked up again, the ranger had gone.


End file.
